Academic literature on the topic 'Alex Jones'

This contribution analyses the nexus between contemporary US populist nationalism and the post-global media ecology through the case of US radio show host and ‘most paranoid man in America’ Alex Jones and his Infowars. It evaluates the role of Alt Right alternative/activist media and global digital platforms in the success of Jones as ideological entrepreneur. To this end, it looks at Jones’ and Infowars' message (mostly Falls Flag conspiracy theories and pseudo-science-meets-popular-culture fantasy), persona as celebrity populist spectacle, business model, political alliances with Alt Right and Trump, audience as diverse mix of believers and ironic spectators and, most of all, media. In particular, we analyse the mix of legacy and social media and their respective role in his rise and alleged downfall. We evaluate Jones’ efforts as effective ideological entrepreneur, pushing his counter-hegemonic ideology from the fringes to the mainstream.

This article examines how millennial (and apocalyptic) prophecy in contemporary conspiracy theory culture is both constructed from, and in turn produces, material things. Influential radio host and filmmaker Alex Jones (b. 1974), constructs his prophecies of imminent “Fall of America,” engineered by a shadowy cabal of Satan-worshiping socialists, from material things—ammunition purchases, birth certificates, chemtrails and extreme weather. At the same time, his prophecies in turn nurture an industry producing water filters, “seed banks,” and freeze-dried food for the “preppers” who would survive—material expressions of their millenarianism. These processes illuminate how material concerns actively construct worlds of belief, whether religious or apparently secular.

This contribution starts from the contemporary surge in conspiracism to develop a theoretical framework to understand how conspiracy theories make it from the margins to the mainstream. To this end, it combines a view of conspiracy theories as ideology and its propagandists as ideological entrepreneurs with insights into how the affordances of digital media and popular culture are instrumental in propagating the conspiracy theories. It further complements sociological and psychological explanations with a fandom perspective to grasp the diversity of conspiracy audiences. Together, it is argued, these factors allow ideological entrepreneurs to push conspiracy theories from the margins to the mainstream. Alex Jones and QAnon are discussed as cases in point.

Deplatforming refers to the permanent ban of controversial public figures with large followings on social media sites. In recent years, platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have deplatformed many influencers to curb the spread of offensive speech. We present a case study of three high-profile influencers who were deplatformed on Twitter---Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Owen Benjamin. Working with over 49M tweets, we found that deplatforming significantly reduced the number of conversations about all three individuals on Twitter. Further, analyzing the Twitter-wide activity of these influencers' supporters, we show that the overall activity and toxicity levels of supporters declined after deplatforming. We contribute a methodological framework to systematically examine the effectiveness of moderation interventions and discuss broader implications of using deplatforming as a moderation strategy.

When conservative media personality and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones warned of an impending Second Civil War to be initiated by Democrats, he instigated a viral hashtag on Twitter – #secondcivilwarletters – which drew tweets of political commentary and critique in a style mimicking war letters from the American Civil War. Using a sample of these tweets, this article explores the evocation of discursive illusions already established within mainstream and alternative media discourse about contemporary partisan politics in America – that is, the divide between the Republicans and the Democrats and how they categorise each other. To do this we adopt Bhatia’s framework of the discourse of illusion and its three main components of linguistic and semiotic action, historicity and social impact. The analysis reveals the extent to which this illusion has permeated the consciousness of the users as they present their ideological beliefs and positions in this new media context.

The Ebola virus had only been in the United States for 2 months before it became a major national health concern. However, while some citizens panicked about the looming health crisis, others remained calm, offering explanations for why a rapid spread of the virus was unlikely. Examining the distinctions between these different reactions can contribute to a better understanding of the coping strategies citizens use when facing a health crisis. We consider how citizens respond to fear by focusing on whether or not hyperbolic rhetoric was used as a means for processing and managing fear. Approximately 400 tweets and Facebook posts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House, and The Alex Jones Show were examined to make conclusions about how citizens respond to messages from these mediated forums. At the intersection of health communication and critical rhetoric, we advance an operational definition of health hyperbolism derived from public response to opinion leaders. Ultimately, we find that health hyperbolism contains language illustrative of distrust, blame, anger, misrepresentation, conspiracy, and curiosity.

The 2017 Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Society of Clinician Investigators (CSCI) and Clinician Investigator Trainee Association of Canada/Association des Cliniciens-Chercheurs en Formation du Canada (CITAC/ACCFC) was a national Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Toronto, Ontario November 20–22, 2017, in conjunction with the University of Toronto Clinician Investigator Program Research Day. The theme for this year’s meeting was “Roll up your sleeves—How to manage your physician scientist career”, emphasizing lectures and workshops that were designed to provide tools for being proactive and successful in career planning. The keynote speakers were Dr. Rod McInnes (McGill University and Canadian Institutes of Health Research Acting President), who was the Distinguished Scientist Award recipient, Dr. David Goltzman (McGill University), who was the 2017 Henry Friesen Award recipient, Dr. Gillian Hawker (University of Toronto), Dr. Mike Sapieha (Université de Montréal), who was the 2017 Joe Doupe Award recipient, and Dr. Alex MacKenzie (Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, University of Ottawa). The workshops, focusing on career development for clinician scientists, were hosted by Dr. Lisa Robinson, Dr. Nicola Jones, Kevin Vuong, Fran Brunelle, Dr. Jason Berman and Dr. Alan Underhill. Further to this, the Young Investigators’ Forum encompasses presentations from scientist-clinician trainees from across the country. All scientific abstracts are summarized in this review. There were over 100 abstracts showcased at this year’s meeting during the highlighted poster sessions, with six outstanding abstracts selected for oral presentations during the President’s Forum.

J. Lennart Berggren and Alexander Jones, Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters. By Karin Tybjerg 194Natalia Lozovsky, ‘The Earth is Our Book’: Geographical Knowledge in the Latin West ca. 400–1000. By Evelyn Edson 196David Cantor (ed.), Reinventing Hippocrates. By Daniel Brownstein 197Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 1500–1700. By John Henry 199Paolo Rossi, Logic and the Art of Memory: The Quest for a Universal Language. By John Henry 200Marie Boas Hall, Henry Oldenburg: Shaping the Royal Society. By Christoph Lüthy 201Richard L. Hills, James Watt, Volume 1: His Time in Scotland, 1736–1774. By David Philip Miller 203René Sigrist (ed.), H.-B. de Saussure (1740–1799): Un Regard sur la terre, Albert V. Carozzi and John K. Newman (eds.), Lectures on Physical Geography given in 1775 by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure at the Academy of Geneva/Cours de géographie physique donné en 1775 par Horace-Bénédict de Saussure à l'Académie de Genève and Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, Voyages dans les Alpes: Augmentés des Voyages en Valais, au Mont Cervin et autour du Mont Rose. By Martin Rudwick 206Anke te Heesen, The World in a Box: The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Picture Encyclopedia. By Richard Yeo 208David Boyd Haycock, William Stukeley: Science, Religion and Archaeology in Eighteenth-Century England. By Geoffrey Cantor 209Jessica Riskin, Science in the Age of Sensibility: The Sentimental Empiricists of the French Enlightenment. By Dorinda Outram 210Michel Chaouli, The Laboratory of Poetry: Chemistry and Poetics in the Work of Friedrich Schlegel. By David Knight 211George Levine, Dying to Know: Scientific Epistemology and Narrative in Victorian England. By Michael H. Whitworth 212Agustí Nieto-Galan, Colouring Textiles: A History of Natural Dyestuffs in Industrial Europe. By Ursula Klein 214Stuart McCook, States of Nature: Science, Agriculture, and Environment in the Spanish Caribbean, 1760–1940. By Piers J. Hale 215Paola Govoni, Un pubblico per la scienza: La divulgazione scientifica nell'Italia in formazione. By Pietro Corsi 216R. W. Home, A. M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D. M. Sinkora and J. H. Voigt (eds.), Regardfully Yours: Selected Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller. Volume II: 1860–1875. By Jim Endersby 217Douglas R. Weiner, Models of Nature: Ecology, Conservation and Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia. With a New Afterword. By Piers J. Hale 219Helge Kragh, Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century. By Steven French 220Antony Kamm and Malcolm Baird, John Logie Baird: A Life. By Sean Johnston 221Robin L. Chazdon and T. C. Whitmore (eds.), Foundations of Tropical Forest Biology: Classic Papers with Commentaries. By Joel B. Hagen 223Stephen Jay Gould, I Have Landed: Splashes and Reflections in Natural History. By Peter J. Bowler 223Henry Harris, Things Come to Life: Spontaneous Generation Revisited. By Rainer Brömer 224Hélène Gispert (ed.), ‘Par la Science, pour la patrie’: L'Association française pour l'avancement des sciences (1872–1914), un projet politique pour une société savante. By Cristina Chimisso 225Henry Le Chatelier, Science et industrie: Les Débuts du taylorisme en France. By Robert Fox 227Margit Szöllösi-Janze (ed.), Science in the Third Reich. By Jonathan Harwood 227Vadim J. Birstein, The Perversion of Knowledge; The true Story of Soviet Science. By C. A. J. Chilvers 229Guy Hartcup, The Effect of Science on the Second World War. By David Edgerton 230Lillian Hoddeson and Vicki Daitch, True Genius: The Life and Science of John Bardeen, the Only Winner of Two Nobel Prizes in Physics. By Arne Hessenbruch 230Stephen B. Johnson, The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and European Space Programs, John M. Logsdon (ed.), Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program. Volume V: Exploring the Cosmos and Douglas J. Mudgway, Uplink-Downlink: A History of the Deep Space Network 1957–1997. By Jon Agar 231Helen Ross and Cornelis Plug, The Mystery of the Moon Illusion: Exploring Size Perception. By Klaus Hentschel 233Matthew R. Edwards (ed.), Pushing Gravity: New Perspectives on Le Sage's Theory of Gravitation. By Friedrich Steinle 234Ernest B. Hook (ed.), Prematurity in Scientific Discovery: On Resistance and Neglect. By Alex Dolby 235John Waller, Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery. By Alex Dolby 236Rosalind Williams, Retooling: A Historian Confronts Technological Change. By Keith Vernon 237Colin Divall and Andrew Scott, Making Histories in Transport Museums. By Anthony Coulls 238